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NASA Spacecraft Snaps New Photo of Potential ‘Comet of the Century’

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A NASA spacecraft scanning for the most powerful explosions in the universe has captured a photo of Comet ISON, an icy wanderer that could potentially dazzle stargazers when it swings close to the sun later this year.

NASA's Swift satellite, which is typically used to track intense gamma-ray bursts from distant stars, photographed Comet ISON on Jan. 30, with the space agency unveiling the photo today (March 29). By tracking the comet over the last two months, Swift has allowed astronomers to learn new details about how large the comet is and how fast it is spewing out gas and dust.

"Comet ISON has the potential to be among the brightest comets of the last 50 years, which gives us a rare opportunity to observe its changes in great detail and over an extended period," said Lead Investigator Dennis Bodewits, an astronomer with University of Maryland at College Park (UMCP) who helped obtain the new image.

Some astronomers have predicted that ISON could be the "Comet of the Century" when it makes its closest approach to the sun in late November. But a recent analysis found that the comet is not brightening as expected, and may have a ways to go to meet such expectations.

Comet ISON was first discovered in September 2012 by Russian astronomers Vitali Nevski and Artyom Novichonok using the International Scientific Optical Network (ISON) located near Kislovodsk. The comet's official designation is Comet C/2012 S1 (ISON). [See more photos of Comet ISON]

Swift's Comet ISON view

Bodewits and his university colleagues teamed up with the Lowell Observatory in Flagstaff, Ariz., to capture new views of Comet ISON using the Swift spacecraft. The satellite's Jan. 30 photo shows the comet as a bright, fuzzy white ball. At the time, Comet ISON was about 375 million miles (670 million kilometers) from Earth and 460 million miles (740 million km) from the sun.

"Using images acquired over the last two months from Swift's Ultraviolet/Optical Telescope (UVOT), the team has made initial estimates of the comet's water and dust production and used them to infer the size of its icy nucleus," NASA officials wrote in a statement.

Swift's observations revealed that Comet ISON is currently shedding about 112,000 pounds (51,000 kilograms) of dust and about 130 pounds (60 kg) of water every minute, an odd mismatch for such an anticipated comet.

All comets are made of dust and frozen gases that mix together to form a sort of "dirty snowball" in space, NASA officials explained. Water ice in comets typically stays frozen until the comet approaches within three times the Earth's distance to the sun, at which time the water ice heats up and changes directly into gas (a process called sublimation), creating jets of material that can brighten the comet.

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NASA Spacecraft Snaps New Photo of Potential 'Comet of the Century'

NASA Asteroid Capture Mission: First Real Step in Utilizing Extraterrestrial Resources

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NASA is about to get a chance to try something totally new: instead of just visting or landing on things in space, it is going to go grab one of those things - something that is rather huge - and bring it back to Earth. Details will be formally announced on 10 April 2013 when the new budget is rolled out.

According to Aviation Week and Space Technology: "NASA's fiscal 2014 budget request will include $100 million for a new mission to find a small asteroid, capture it with a robotic spacecraft and bring it into range of human explorers somewhere in the vicinity of the Moon."

Interesting. First the President challenges NASA to send humans to an asteroid by 2025 - but there was nothing in place to do so having just cancelled Ares and Orion. Then Orion came back and Ares was reincarnated as SLS. Then NASA loses interest in the asteroid thing and comes up with alternate plans to send people to L2 (and maybe elsewhere). Then the Keck study looks at how to grab a small NEO and bring it to near-Earth space - L2 for example. Then Charlie Bolden makes his cryptic comments at the NAS in December 2012: "when the President announced that an asteroid would be the next destination for NASA's human spaceflight program, he did not say NASA had to fly all the way to an asteroid. What matters is the ability to put humans with an asteroid.". Well, Bolden was referring to this idea which was still in flux as part of the budget process.

Add in the close approach of asteroid DA14 and the Chelyabinsk meteor impact, back-to-back congressional hearings on asteroids, and forces have all seemed to have coalesced behind a rather gutsy idea - grabbing an asteroid and bringing it back to our neighborhood. Under this plan, the robotic solar electric propelled spacecraft would leave in 2018 and perhaps as early as 2016 - possibly while the President is still in office - and bring it back to L2. A human crew would visit the parking location at L2 on the first crewed mission of Orion/SLS in 2021 - four years earlier than the President's original goal. Not only does this meet the President's goal, it merges the sometimes divergent SLS/Orion interests and the interests of the L2 proponents with the intentions of the White House.

One would hope that as NASA implements this concept that they use it as a catalyst for new ways of looking for asteroids and dealing with the threat they may pose as well as other technologies needed of the utilization of cis-lunar space, the Moon and elsewhere. Moreover, although a commercial solution could certainly be found to do this cheaper, one would hope that this initial NASA effort would be conducted with the full intention of fostering commercial means to build and expand upon what NASA wants to do.

That said, the fact that we are now capable of going out and grabbing an asteroid and moving it to a place that we have chosen signals the first major step in the utilization of extraterrestrial resources by human civilization. We are embarking on the rearrangement of our solar system to better suit human needs.

That's a paradigm shift folks.

- Bolden: NASA Does Not Have To Actually Go To An Asteroid, earlier post - Making the Case for Human Missions to Asteroids, Space Quarterly - NASA Really Doesn't Want to Do That Whole Asteroid Thing, earlier post - Asteroid Return Mission Study, Keck Institute for Space Studies

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NASA Asteroid Capture Mission: First Real Step in Utilizing Extraterrestrial Resources

Angry Birds Invade NASA ‘s Kennedy Space Center

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The Angry Birds have landed at NASA's gateway to space.

Rovio's wildly popular game franchise is hosting an interactive exhibit at the Kennedy Space Center Visitor Complex in Cape Canaveral, Fla. the public face of NASA's spaceport that launched moon rockets and space shuttles.

"Angry Birds Space Encounter is both a fun and education experience," Bill Moore, chief operating officer of the space center's visitor complex for Delaware North Companies Parks & Resorts, said in a statement. [Photos of Angry Birds Space in Space]

The exhibition, which opened at the Kennedy Space Center on March 22, has six different Angry Birds experiences for visitors to choose from, according to an exhibit description from the space center:

This isn't the first time Angry Birds has partnered with NASA. Rovio, the game's parent company, collaborated with the space agency when they released "Angry Birds Space" for a variety of computer and mobile devices. They teamed up again for "Angry Birds Space: Red Planet," which saw NASA's Mars rover Curiosity join the game franchise.

A message on Twitter from NASA to the game company set the idea for making a space-themed Angry Birds in motion.

"Hey @RovioMobile, our computers are a bit better than they were in '69," NASA officials wrote on the social media website. "We might be able to help you launch birds if you find pigs in space."

At the end of June, the space center will hold a grand opening event in honor of the Space Shuttle Atlantis' new home at Kennedy.

Follow Miriam Kramer @mirikramer and Google+. Follow us @Spacedotcom, Facebook and Google+. Original article on SPACE.com.

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Angry Birds Invade NASA 's Kennedy Space Center

NASA astronaut to make historic trip to space station

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Three men are preparing to make an historic trip to the International Space Station this afternoon.

One NASA astronaut and two Russian cosmonauts are set to blast off in a Soyuz spacecraft from the Baikonur Cosmodrome in Kazakhstan at 4:43 p.m. ET today. If all goes as planned, the three men will become the first to make an expedited trip to the space station.

Historically, it has taken NASA's space shuttle fleet, as well as Russian Soyuz capsules, two days after launch to rendezvous with the space station. It will only take four Earth orbits for this capsule and crew to reach their destination.

Flight Engineer Alexander Misurkin (left), Soyuz Commander Pavel Vinogradov (center) and Flight Engineer Chris Cassidy of NASA pose for pictures in front of the ISS Progress 51 cargo ship being prepared for launch to the International Space Station on Friday. (Photo: Victor Zelentsov/NASA)

The trip should take just six hours, meaning the Soyuz is scheduled to arrive at the station at 10:32 p.m.

The faster trip is using new rendezvous techniques that have been tested out with three recent unpiloted Russian cargo spacecrafts, according to NASA.

Hatches on both the Soyuz and the space station are set to open at 12:10 a.m. ET Friday.

NASA astronaut Chris Cassidy, along with Pavel Vinogradov and Alexander Misurkin of the Russian Federal Space Agency, are riding the Soyuz to the orbiter today. They will join Commander Chris Hadfield and Flight Engineers Tom Marshburn and Roman Romanenko, who already are living on the station.

Hadfield, a Canadian Space Agency astronaut living on the space station, tweeted about the arrival of his new crew mates. "Good Morning, Earth! A long & big day ahead as 3 friends launch in their Soyuz rocket from Baikonur to dock with us ~03:00. Godspeed!" he wrote early today.

Sharon Gaudin covers the Internet and Web 2.0, emerging technologies, and desktop and laptop chips for Computerworld. Follow Sharon on Twitter at @sgaudin, on Google+ or subscribe to Sharon's RSS feed. Her email address is sgaudin@computerworld.com.

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NASA astronaut to make historic trip to space station

Nasa Wants To Build A Holo-Deck To Explore Other Worlds From Earth

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Nasa wants to build a way for people to explore the surface of distant worlds from their living rooms.

In a speech at the Games Developers Conference in San Francisco, the space agency said it imagined a 'holo deck' into which people could step and explore the universe.

"We all desperately want Star Trek," said Nasa's Jeff Norris, according to The Verge, in a version of a presentation given last year at the PAX Conference, which you can watch above.

"I do believe that humanity's destiny is to climb aboard starships and explore the universe. I think at last we finally have in our grasp the technology necessary to build a very important room on this vessel."

It's not the first time Nasa's imagined - or even built a Holo Deck. Back in 1998 it showed off an 'immersive' meeting room which allowed engineers to work with virtual reality.

But the new vision is far grander -- allowing everyone to explore space, on their own terms, as if they were really there.

Norris's fanciful - but inspiring - idea is based on the interesting experiments Nasa is already able to do with Leap Motion interfaces, which allow users to control devices and simulations with their hands, without touching a computer.

In the demonstration at GDC, Nasa was able to control a robotic rover miles from the conference centre with the innovative third-party control system.

Nasa's aim is to return to the living room, with games and experiments, where families once gathered to watch the Moon landings and Space Shuttle missions.

Part of its current work involves teaming up with Leap and companies like Microsoft to develop new systems to easily explore other worlds and asteroids with intuitive interfaces.

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Nasa Wants To Build A Holo-Deck To Explore Other Worlds From Earth

NASA : Sequester could delay U.S. plan to launch astronauts by 2017

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NASA and its commercial allies are on track to launch astronauts into space from U.S. soil by 2017, unless the government's sequester delays their efforts.

"We're still marching along on our 2017 initial flight for a crewed vehicle," said NASA Administrator Charles Bolden in a teleconference Thursday about the recent SpaceX resupply mission to the International Space Station.

"So far, we don't see any significant impact with the rest of this fiscal year, but if we can't get out of this sequester condition, it could slow down our progress on a commercial crew... We already are talking to our partners about delays in milestones if we don't get the funding that we want," Bolden said.

The sequester did not affect the SpaceX mission, which ended with a successful splashdown of the Dragon capsule on Tuesday, Bolden said.

The Dragon ferried about 1,200 pounds of supplies and scientific experiments to the International Space Station earlier this month. After 23 days docked with the orbiter, the spacecraft returned to Earth, carrying finished experiments and space station trash.

Bolden said he doesn't foresee any delays or problems for NASA caused by the sequester, a set of automatic spending cuts that are set to last until 2021, for this year. However, he said that could change if the sequester goes on longer than this year.

"It could have downstream impact on everything we do," he added.

Bolden also used the teleconference as a reminder about the importance of a commercial cargo program.

He noted that Orbital Sciences Corp., a Dulles, Va.-based company that specializes in the manufacture and launch of satellites, is building and testing a new rocket and cargo spacecraft for its own resupply missions to the space station.

Orbital Sciences is scheduled to launch its first test flight in mid-April. A demonstration mission is planned for this summer and its first official resupply mission is set for the fall.

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NASA : Sequester could delay U.S. plan to launch astronauts by 2017

NASA provides a super-speed look at Webb Telescope progress

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Mar. 27, 2013 NASA released a new sped-up, 32-second video that shows engineers working on some of the James Webb Space Telescope's flight components to integrate them together to ensure they will work perfectly together in space.

The "NASA Webb Clean Room at Super-speed" video was filmed in the giant clean room at NASA's Goddard Space Flight Center in Greenbelt, Md., and produced at Goddard. The video is available on a NASA website in HD at: http://svs.gsfc.nasa.gov/goto?11220 . Testing of the two flight instruments that have been delivered to Goddard has been ongoing in the past several months.

Larger image Engineers and scientists at Goddard have begun assembling the four science instruments together. In a recently released video from NASA clean room personnel are shown installing the Fine Guidance Sensor (FGS) instrument into a larger structure called the Integrated Science Instrument Module (ISIM) structure. The ISIM structure is the larger skeletal structure in the video, and the FGS is the object on the end of a balance beam being moved by a crane.

"This is the integration of the FGS/NIRISS instrument onto the ISIM structure," said Scott Lambros, Webb Instrument systems manager at Goddard. "This is the first of the four instruments to be integrated on the structure and is a very exciting time. It clearly shows we are moving into a new phase, from development, into the integration and then testing phase."

The FGS is actually one half of a combination instrument with the Near-Infrared Imager and Slitless Spectrograph (NIRISS) science instrument. The FGS will enable the telescope to accurately and precisely point at the correct, intended objects for it to observe.

"The Webb telescope fine guidance sensor which provides pointing stability, or image stabilizer control, has been installed and being readied for testing together with other instruments in the ISIM," said Ray Lundquist, ISIM systems engineer at Goddard.

The FGS is packaged together as a single unit with the NIRISS science instrument and is developed and provided by the Canadian Space Agency and its prime contractor, COM DEV.

The ISIM is the whole integrated system of instruments on the Webb. It's one of four major elements that comprise the Webb Observatory flight system. It contains the four science instruments that will detect light from distant stars and galaxies, and planets orbiting other stars. The ISIM itself provides electrical, computational and heat management services for the science instruments.

"The MIRI instrument will be the next to be integrated onto the structure within the next month, with the NIRCam and NIRSpec instruments to follow later this year," Lambros said.

Another video was released last year produced by the Space Science Telescope Institute of Baltimore, Md., in the "Behind the Webb" series. That video, called "Canada's Dynamic Duo," took viewers behind the scenes where the instruments were created, and is on-line.

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NASA provides a super-speed look at Webb Telescope progress

NASA OIG: Review of NASA ‘s Explosives Safety Program

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Full Report

NASA Inspector General Paul Martin today released a report that assesses the Agency's efforts to protect its people, property, and the general public from the potentially catastrophic effects of explosives, propellants, and pyrotechnics - collectively known as energetic materials. From launching vehicles into space to the successful landing of the Curiosity rover on Mars, energetic materials are an integral part of many NASA missions. This Office of Inspector General (OIG) review found that NASA's Explosives Safety Program was poorly managed and exposed personnel and facilities to unnecessary risk. Specifically, we identified 155 violations of regulations, policies, procedures, and processes involving unsafe conditions and practices - some of which could have resulted in significant damage, injury, or death to NASA personnel, contractors, and the public. For example, we found incompatible explosive materials stored in the same location, unsafe distances between occupied buildings and storage facilities containing energetic materials, inaccurate or incomplete inventories of energetic materials, and improper inspection procedures for vehicles used to transport these materials. In our judgment, a lack of oversight, resources, and training at both the local and Headquarters level contributed to the deficiencies we identified. At Stennis Space Center, we identified a building that did not meet the basic requirements for storing explosive materials - namely, it lacked adequate firewalls, operational shields, a blast-resistant roof, and containment structures. Moreover, the building was being used to store incompatible energetic materials. Because personnel did not appropriately account for the combined effects of these materials, the safe separation distance between the energetic materials and an adjoining building was miscalculated. According to OIG estimates, if the stored materials had detonated more than 40 percent of the occupied building would have sustained structural damage and 15 percent of the personnel inside could have sustained fatal injuries. At the Wallops Flight Facility, which stores approximately 100,000 pounds of high-order, mass detonating explosive materials, we observed hundreds of rockets containing potentially explosive propellant stacked in close proximity to each other in bunkers. NASA personnel we spoke with had never assessed the physical condition of these rockets, all of which were manufactured between the late 1950s and early 1970s. The stacked placement, coupled with the unknown condition of the propellant, increased the probability of a catastrophic event because a single rocket igniting or exploding could have set off a chain-reaction of detonations. At NASA's White Sands Test Facility the OIG observed two shipping crates containing lead azide that appeared to be decomposing and therefore had potentially become highly unstable and sensitive to any sudden movement. To NASA's credit, personnel at each site quickly addressed the issues we uncovered that presented an immediate threat to personnel and facilities. To improve NASA's Explosives Safety Program and better ensure the safety and protection of personnel, property and the environment the OIG made seven recommendations, including that NASA initiate a review of management, storage, and handling procedures at all Centers and Facilities to identify deficiencies, take corrective actions, and share best practices; immediately conduct an Agency-wide inventory of energetic materials and initiate an investigation of any missing materials; and correct deficiencies regarding the qualifications and training of personnel who work in the Program. NASA concurred with the recommendations. The full report can be found on the OIG's website at http://oig.nasa.gov/ under "Reading Room" or at the following link: http://www.hq.nasa.gov/office/oig/hq/audits/reports/FY13/IG-13-013.pdf Please contact Renee Juhans at (202) 358-1220 if you have questions.

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NASA OIG: Review of NASA 's Explosives Safety Program

Petition Asks White House to Reverse NASA Outreach Sequester Cuts

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A new online petition asks the White House to repeal budget cuts that have spurred NASA to suspend many of its education and public-outreach efforts.

The petition was created on Friday (March 22), the same day that NASA issued two internal memos outlining how outreach activities are being scaled back as a result of sequestration, the set of across-the-board federal cuts that took effect March 1. The memos began circulating outside the agency Friday as well.

"The sequester's recent cuts on NASA's spending in public outreach and its STEM [science, technology, engineering and math] programs must not be allowed," the petition states. "These cuts would end the many programs NASA has for educating the children of our society, as well as many other forms of public outreach held by NASA."

NASA officials have stressed that the agency is suspending rather than terminating many of its outreach programs. And some activities are exempt from the suspension, including websites and social media accounts that are already up and running, such as the Mars rover Curiosity's award-winning Twitter feed. [Curiosity Rover's Latest Amazing Mars Photos]

The petition was submitted through the White House's official "We the People" site, which promises an administration response to any petition that garners at least 100,000 signatures within 30 days. As of today (March 27), the NASA education petition has gotten about 5,800 people to sign on.

Some organizations are already taking steps to help fill the education and public outreach (EPO) gap that NASA's suspension has created.

Space-funding company Uwingu, for example, announced Monday (March 25) that money raised by its public contest to name Alpha Centauri Bb the closest known exoplanet to our own solar system will be put toward grants for EPO projects and personnel affected by NASA's cutback.

"At Uwingu, we believe that private and commercial funding of space-based initiatives including research and EPO is more important now than ever," company CEO Alan Stern, a former NASA science chief and head of the agency's New Horizons mission to Pluto, said in a statement.

Sequestration is imposing budget cuts across many federal agencies and institutions. NASA's budget is taking nearly a billion-dollar hit, dropping to $16.9 billion from the $17.8 billion that Congress approved last year.

All of the space agency's activities are being cut by the same amount (5 percent), as NBC News' Alan Boyle points out.So we may see other petitions pop up when people learn exactly how the sequester is going to affect NASA's science and exploration plans.

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How Will the Martian Rovers Deal With Solar Conjunction? | NASA JPL Space Science HD Video – Video

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How Will the Martian Rovers Deal With Solar Conjunction? | NASA JPL Space Science HD Video
Visit my website at http://www.junglejoel.com - Mars solar conjunction is coming. How do scientists communicate with the Martian rovers when the sun is in th...

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How Will the Martian Rovers Deal With Solar Conjunction? | NASA JPL Space Science HD Video - Video

UFOs, anomalies and holograms near the Sun in pictures © NASA – The review for March 21, 2013 – Video

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UFOs, anomalies and holograms near the Sun in pictures NASA - The review for March 21, 2013
The sun disappeared again! The sun disappears the second day in a row! But, the Sun there, we do not see it, but it remains there where was! For full informa...

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UFOs, anomalies and holograms near the Sun in pictures © NASA - The review for March 21, 2013 - Video


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